Throwing Shade: The rise of anti-solar movements.

By Olivia White – Director

The UK has a varied history of protesting against development. Many of us will remember Swampy (the human mole) who spent a week in a series of tunnels dug to halt the expansion of the A30. Whilst in one respect such non-violent direct action inspired groups like Extinction Rebellion. On the other, the tactics of using media and public attention to gain support is being used by hyper-local interest groups battling development in their communities.  

If there is one sector which is seeing growth like no other in local activists… it’s solar. And the groups are more coordinated, impactful and resourceful than we’ve seen before. They are sharing successful strategies, messaging and channels, working together to create an evolving protestors playbook. 

Many of these interest groups start online, soon after a project launches. Fearing a development’s impact, a small number of active community members bind together. These founding members are not always the most impacted members of the community, but they are passionate and often digitally savvy.     

Often these groups can have hundreds of followers, many of whom may not have even looked at the developer’s information, website or gone to an event before making their consultation responses. This contributes to one of the biggest challenges developers find with engaging with local communities’, the quick spread of misunderstanding and mistruths.  

In many cases, this is done unintentionally. Where a concerned resident incorrectly draws conclusions (think red line boundary versus land being proposed to host infrastructure) or overstates impacts. Driven by fear and outrage, in this online era misinformation quickly spreads and for many becomes the truth. Projects are then in the unenviable position of trying to set right a wrong before the local community knows or trusts them.  

Groups like the UK Solar Alliance and Lincolnshire Against Needless Destruction are creating a coordinating role, providing resources and lessons learnt for groups trying to influence solar development in their areas, alongside campaign ideas such as coordinated walks on land identified for solar development.  

Whilst digitally focused, many of these groups also use more traditional techniques like petitions, public meetings, protesting at developers’ consultation events and press releases to rally local opposition. Although, in our experience such in person activities are limited to the most active few, rather than the wider group.  

So how do developers deal with such momentum? Here are our top tips: 

1. Know your area: There is nothing more frustrating for local people than a project team that clearly doesn’t know or understand the area. Make sure your whole team, including consultants, visit site early and know how to pronounce location names correctly.  

2. Listen and respect: Take time to understand your communities and personalities. What’s being said, by who and who’s engaging with any emerging groups. Ensure key councillors and MPs are briefed early and are given the responses to concerns they will face from residents. 

3. Localise your messaging: Anti-groups are usually very successful at tapping into the concerns and fears of the public.  It is the role of the developer to understand these potential concerns and develop messaging which is truthful, engaging and accessible at the start of the project. Your messaging should be placed where residents will connect with it. Be ready to quickly respond to myths as they arise.   

4. Don’t hide behind your website: There is no point trying to tackle mistruths head on using only your website. Groups are on social media and projects need to be too. Targeting messaging and signposting to fact and evidence which is easy for people to understand. Also, projects need to have a face, using videos presented by the project leads or even community advocates are an easy way to explain a project to people in a format they can digest.  

5. Don’t underestimate them: Behind the keyboards are intelligent and engaged residents who take time to understand projects and navigate the often highly complex material produced by developers. These people care about their local environment, spend time getting to know the people behind the groups, building rapport will help both sides understand each other better. 

Despite their visibility, these groups have not significantly derailed the UK’s broader net zero ambitions. The government remains committed to expanding solar capacity as part of its Net Zero strategy, and many large-scale projects continue to move forward – albeit sometimes more slowly or with added conditions.